Dauchot

I created this recipe by blending my two favorite Belgian styles (Belgian strong golden ale and Belgian witbier; specifically, I was inspired by two very popular beers, Delirium Tremens and Hoegaarden Witbier), and then, on brew day, not having all the right ingredients I thought I needed and being forced to improvise.

To my dad, this is not only his favorite beer, he calls it "the mistake." I remember the first time I ever poured out a pint - the first for either of us - back at the bar in my house in NC.

Me: "Okay dad, I didn't have two of the ingredients I thought I needed so I improvised, and I apologize if this is gross."
- Dad takes a sip -
Dad: "This is the best beer you've ever made. You wrote down what you did, right? You need to make this. More of this. All the time."

Yes, I wrote it down. In BeerSmith actually.

I chose not to call it "the mistake" but to name it after a Belgian model famous for being "big and tall" - a full figured but beautiful woman named Deborah Dauchot.

There's a massive ingredients list. It's a pretty straight-forward brew. The mashing process is a single infusion with a standard sixty minute boil and only ingredient adds at 40 and 55 minutes, the only "non-standard" bit is the two-stage fermentation to take advantage of two completely different ale strains that impart different flavors (and the order of use matters dramatically as well).

Ingredients:

Process:

1. Make a 2 liter starter for the Belgian Wit yeast.
2. Mash in the nine different grains to 5 and ⅛ gallons of strike water at 168° F; this will crash the temp from room temperature grains to a steep temperature of 155° F. Use a burner if necessary to keep mash temperature between 150° F and 160° F the entire time.
3. After 45 minutes, mash out with 2 gallons at 203° F over two minutes to bring the temperature up to 168° F. Let mash at 168° F for another fifteen minutes before beginning fly sparge.
4. Fly sparge with another 2 gallons onto the top of the grain bed at 168° F while slowly draining from the mash tun into the boiler. Should drain off approximately 7 gallons into the boiler.
5. Bring to rolling boil and start timer.
6. Dump in the candi sugar, the honey, and 1 oz of the East Kent Goldings hops as soon as the timer starts.
7. After 40 minutes of boil, add ½ oz of Saaz hops, the seeds of paradise, the cardamom pods, 1.5 tsp of coriander seed, and 1 oz of orange peel (I use one complete orange peel from a fresh small Halo / Clementine orange).
8. After another 15 minutes of boil, add the other ½ oz of Saaz, and the remaining orange peel and coriander.
9. After five more minutes, remove from heat and crash the temperature as fast as possible.
10. Once below 72° F, oxygenate the wort and pitch the Witbier yeast starter, stirring gently and then capping the carboy (or conical). I try to keep the fermentation at 67-69° F, and we're ideally going eight days with the first pitch.
11. For the second stage, make a 2 l yeast starter with the Golden Ale yeast, pitch that and float 2 oz of El Dorado hops. Let the beer go another seven days.
12. Keg.
13. Pressurize at 12.5 PSI for six days at room temperature.
14. Chill to 33° F and serve in a Belgian goblet.
15. Enjoy!  

You can download the BeerSmith bsmx file here.